My field of interest lies mainly in British Columbia's history. This includes shipping along the West Coast.

Sea otter pelts from the West Coast were selling for incredible prices in Canton China. In the late 1700's and early 1800's coastal Indians were trading sea otter skins for nails, sheets of copper, iron bars, knives and axes. An axe could be traded for up to 5 skins, which could be sold in China for anywhere between $60 and $150 each depending on quality of the fur and the number of hides on the market at the time. As more ships arrived on the coast the Indians began asking for more trade goods in exchange for their furs and would often refuse to trade with ships that wouldn't pay more. Some greedy captains kidnapped chiefs and held them for a ransom in furs. Other captains would use their cannons to shell Indian villages into submission and force them to hand over their fur. These actions gave the Indians a lust for vengeance and led to the massacre of all but two crew members of the Boston in 1803 and the Tonquin in 1811.

The West Coast was, and still is, a dangerous place for ships. The books Shipwrecks of British Columbia, British Columbia shipwrecks and The Graveyard of the Pacific are filled with accounts of ships striking uncharted reefs, being blown off course, running aground because of navigation errors and drifting on a rocky shore after breaking a main mast and losing control. These books describe the rescues and how lifelines and surf boats were rowed out into full force gales to rescue sailors in peril, sometimes with the rescuers dying in their attempts.

Fog was dangerous back then. Sailing ships sailed by dead reckoning, trusting their captains and navigators to safely judge their speed, course and drift from currents and winds.

When gold was discovered in the Stikine/Cassiar region a rush ensued and all available ships, seaworthy or not, were put into service. The SS Pacific was an old paddlewheeler that had been retired in 1872 because of rot and decay. With profits to be made from this new rush she was given minor cosmetic fixes and returned to service. The Pacific left Victoria one foggy day in 1875 and collided with the sailing ship Orpheus. Two hundred and seventy-three people died and just one man survived to tell what happened.

When the Yukon gold rush started some 20 years later more decrepit and rotting ships were overloaded with passengers and supplies and sent to their doom at the bottom of the Pacific. Fast turn-around times meant more profits for the owners so was encouraged at all costs. Captains sailing the inside passage quickly learned how to blow their fog horns and use the timing of the returning echoes to plot their locations. Many ships ran aground when captains made an error in their speed calculations and blindly steamed into a reef or shoal. The Princess Sophia is a most tragic example of this happening when she ran aground on Vanderbilt Reef in 1918. Bad decisions made by her captain caused the needless deaths of all 364 people on board her two days later.

James Douglas, the governor of the fledgling colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia and chief trader in charge of the Hudson's Bay Company's British Columbia operations had many complaints about the problems arising from shipping. All foreign ships sailing in to Oregon territory in the 1840's were required to first check in with the tax authority in Astoria. The Hudson's Bay Company had an exemption to paying taxes for company goods shipped to their holdings on the Columbia and Washington coast. But ships sailing between Fort Victoria and Fort Nisqually were forced to sail an additional 200 miles to Astoria before landing on American soil under penalty of seizure. When the California gold rush began sailors and ships were much in demand. In the Fort Victoria Letters Douglas says that the company could not man their ships as British sailors are jumping ship as soon as they learned how much their American counterparts were earning. While British sailors and captains were earning $12 and $40 per month respectively, American ships were paying $100 and $300 per month for the same jobs.

Shipping was still risky in the 1850's. Sir James Douglas sent his company and government correspondences to England in triplicate via three different ships. He would also send a manifest of all cargo and gold to the Hudson's Bay Company and tell them what ship he was sending it on up to three months before he actually sent the cargo. This was to allow his company time to insure the cargo with Lloyd's of London against losses arising from shipwrecks.

In the early age of steam there were many accidents that cost many lives. Boilers were using salt water from the ocean to make steam. This water is corrosive and would eat away at the boiler plates, causing catastrophic explosions. Some boilers were made an integral part of the ships frame. As the ship pounded it's way through waves and storms the rivets holding the boilers together would work lose, causing an explosion. There were times that the engineer saw the danger and safely shut the boiler down, causing the boat to drift ashore at the mercy of the winds and currents. Greed and competiveness also caused boilers to explode. Captains and engineers wanting to set speed records or needing extra power to overcome an obstacle would block off the safety valves on their boilers. This created more pressure which produced more power. It also made for very big explosions.